


Gift

by mrstater



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Armor, Canon - TV, F/M, Gift Giving, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 01:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1669133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before they go to Astapor, there’s something Jorah must have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gift

It came as no surprise to Jorah that the queen summoned him to her cabin. They were soon to make port in Astapor, and she would of course want to discuss the duties she had in mind for him when they disembarked _Balerion._

What did come as a _very_ great surprise was the instruction Daenerys gave him almost as soon as she bade him enter.

"Take off that armor, Ser Jorah. You’ll have no need of it today."

He gaped at her from beneath raised eyebrows, his thumb fiddling with the hilt of his sword.

After a moment he found his voice. “With all due respect, Khaleesi, but I have traveled to Astapor before, and thought I’d never set foot in a more dangerous city. Even more so now. Gods only know what news may have been sent here from your enemies in Qarth…”

Hands clasped before her, Daenerys gave him a smile, the sweetness of which was belied by her stern words. “That was not a request, ser, but a command.”

Jorah hesitated only for so long as was necessary to draw in a steadying breath. “My queen,” he murmured, then put his hands up to comply. 

Although he’d dealt with his own armor without a squire’s assistance for much of his life, especially these six years in exile, and could remove or don it quickly, Daenerys quickly grew impatient, pushing his hands aside to work the buckles that fixed his pauldrons to the gorget herself. Jorah could hardly complain, of course, at being so near to her, touched by her, though he held his breath and schooled his face—and elsewhere—not to betray just how much he enjoyed these ministrations. It helped that he was utterly bewildered.

When she’d divested him of his breastplate, she let the pieces fall to the floor with a clang. (Jorah cringed, until he thought, _What’s another dint?_ )

She he stepped back from him, her gaze raking over him. “The gambeson, too, if you please.”

There was no offer or move to assist with that, and Jorah reached around back to unlace the padded garment from around his waist. When he had it off he turned away from her to drape it over a chair; not that he was modest, or hadn’t dreamed of being in a state of undress with her, but he nevertheless felt strangely exposed in just breeches and shirt. And conscious of how ragged and faded the gambeson was.

"Can you believe once this was green?" he attempted to ease his own discomfiture with a joke, running his fingers over the fabric, though the chuckle rattled without much humor in his chest. Green—like the ancient pines of Bear Island…

"I cannot, ser. If that’s so, then I’m all the more glad you shan’t have to go on wearing it."

Jorah opened his mouth to ask what this was all about, but the question died on his tongue as he turned to face her again in time to see her pick up a swath of fabric which he had not previously noticed lying on her bunk. Unfurling the heavy cloth before her with a snap, Daenerys held up before his blinking eyes a new gambeson. A diamond pattern was worked through a green so deep as to be almost black. _Just_ like the pines against the grey winter sky at home.

"Khaleesi, this—"

"Fits, I hope." Her skin brushed his as she pressed it into his hands.

Jorah did not hesitate to wrap the new garment around his waist and show her. “Aye. Like a glove.”

"Oh, there is that, too. Daenerys swept away from him to lift the lid of a case that also lay on the bed. "Or rather…vambrances. Among other things. If you will come here."

That was also not a request, and the soles of Jorah’s boots scuffed over the floorboards as he drew alongside her as she revealed, piece by piece, a new suit of leather armor.

"I had it made when we stopped in New Ghis," Daenerys told him. "I’m not coming to Astapor a beggar queen." Her eyes met his, glimmering playfully— _More like a burglar queen,_ she’d japed as they with her Dothraki plundered Xaro Xhoan Daxos’ palace. “I thought the lord commander of my Queensguard ought to stand beside me looking the part, as well.”

Daenerys was not the first woman to have suggested that he might be better clad; Lynesse had often harped on him, on Bear Island and after their exile, even as every coin he earned with his sword had been spent on pretty things for her. She’d been ashamed of him, of his rustic northern ways, of the livelihood he’d been reduced to. Somehow, this gift of fine new armor made him feel that Daenerys was proud of him, and his chest swelled with pride that the dishonorable path he’d walked had led him into _her_ service.

"I certainly shall appear the Dragon Queen’s man in these," Jorah remarked, tracing his the tip of his forefinger along the knot of dragons’ tails that embellished the shoulder pieces. All of the leatherwork was exquisite, from the pauldrons, to the intricate basketweave on the vambrances, to the breastplate with its—

His heart gave a jolt in his chest as his gaze settled on the image worked in the center.

"Not quite a bear rampant," Daenerys said, her voice heavy, but with her sigh her critical expression gave way to one lightened by amusement. "Your sigil was more difficult to have worked into the design than I anticipated. The armorer had never seen one, so I might as well have been describing a fantastical beast. I had to swear to him such creatures truly do exist abundantly in your forests."

"Most often standing on all fours, wearing mildly quizzical expressions, just like this. But Khaleesi, you need not have gone to such lengths—"

"You are the Dragon Queen’s man. Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island—who I’ve been afraid will be roast bear if you continue to wear plate armor in this hot country."

"At times I’ve feared that humiliating fate, too," he said with a chuckle. But he became serious again as he noticed that she caught her lower lip between her teeth, as though she were afraid his protestations meant he did not like her gift. "You honor me, Khaleesi."

"Not enough," she said, quietly. Then, brightening, she gave him a gentle nudge. "Go on, then, my lord commander. Let’s see how it fits."

It all did—but no piece quite so well as the soft, warm lips Daenerys pressed to his cheek after she inspected him over from top to toe with a look of satisfaction. Jorah felt the touch of them  linger on his skin as he lent her a steadying hand down the gangplank to the quay in Astapor. A sigil, as surely as the bear emblazoned on his chest or the dragons borne on his shoulders.

_The Dragon Queen’s man, indeed._


End file.
